A Plea For Natoma (Lindens look here)

Dear Lindens,

I am writing you on behalf of the repressed little shopping district with endless potential. Along a down trod wooden walkway, amazing things have sprung up around my Texture Shop. Now there is a Tatoo Parlor, A clothing store, Sleeper's Convenience shop, Alpha Electrics custom eye shop, Avatar central and Taessa's Hawiian boutique and club... but this place, as beloved as it is, suffers from a great deal of limitations that just aren't necessary.

Can we dress up that homely old boardwalk? Make it something a bit more modern like a sidewalk or a specially disigned pathway leading into storefronts. Linden owns this so it is unable to be edited.

MAKE GOVERNER LINDEN STOP MONOPOLIZING For acres behind the back of my shop there is virtually nothing but two awkwardly small basketball hopes and a LOT of space.. owned by Governer Linden. This space would be ideal for potential consumers. It is central to the location of other businesses and the boardwalk itself would be epanded to make way for other entreprenuers. However with our dear Governer owning it, and it just sitting there, it is a lot of nice land for ... looking at?

CLEAN UP! There are several building that are decaying beyond measure off the boardwalk, what hasn't already been looted by thrifty passerbys has decayed upwards of 80%. These are players who have obviously left the game, nothing is in these building, even the windows of one building have been 'salvaged' long ago and it is now abandoned. Consider implementing a system that is something like this:

1. After an account is inactive for a specified amount of time, the land reverts back to 'public ownership.' This would give random participants the opportunity to play without having the land cluttered up long term, should a player leave the game. It also provides an opportunity for more consistant players to populate these abandoned lots and make something productive out of them. It will also be an incentive for people to log on more often, even if just to refresh their 'deed.' Not only that but a well kept neighborhood shows responsibility amongst it's residence and someof work hard.

2. STOP LETTING PEOPLE BUY A 4x4 SQUARE and put a primitive shape in it. There are several of these 'pointless properties' that have cluttered up the landscape even since I've been in and before. These little pices of claimed property are in places to small to even put a Default cabin. In Natoma, they are found BETWEEN shops, thus preventing current shop/home owners the opportunity to expand. It might not be a bad Idea to make the first land purchase at least modestly increased in size, as a prerequisite, so SOMETHING can go there besides a default textured sphere.. (that's all that will fit.)
In doing this it will help in many manners;

1. Encourage potential land purchasers to think more sincerely about buying a plot, instead of putting an empty 4x4 square between neighbors in every sim and spattering up the landscape nonsensically.

2. It will be an incentive for individuals to actually DO something with their land instead of vanishing and forgetting they own it.

3. Leave more room for current neighboring property owners the chance to grow without having to 'Build around' someone's forgotten 4x4.

It's inevitible we will have players who sign once or twice, buy land, decide the game is not their cup of tea, and unistall. In the current system it will leave our landscapes dotted with abandoned properties (As Natoma is.) Requiring individuals to log in once a month or something is not unreasonable. It also provides a sense of reassurance to the neighborhood, and releases these fleeting player of obligation. If such a system is not implemented, populated areas will be seperated by ghost sims. (Who wants to own a home/shop in a place no one comes to because it dead?)

I love my little Natoma, my fellow vendors around me, Sleeper, Mark and Alpha have become fvery good friends. Sometimes I have7 people in my texture shop at one just visiting, and people always inquire about property in the area... With the majorit just behind the walk owned by the Governer, and the spaces beteen big enough for a new place but would have to be built around someone's 4x4 with a beachball.. it's hardly very accomodating.

I see a bustling, bright future for this area of Natoma if something can be done, and felt passionatly enough to write my suggestions for your consideration. I'm sure these have already been suggested but it's my two cents worth.

Phaylen.

I bought a little plot of land on a remote peak overlooking the rather dead Natoma mall area (Avatars 'r Us), about 20 total squares, but didn't have money for the last two squares, which would complete my plot. That night, somebody came onto my property, walked the whole circumference, saw the two squares, and bought them...this player would not respond to me when I asked him to hold off, mentioning my intent to build my garden there and how remote the squares were...I even offered to trade some working scripts, but flat out no response. What value other than gouging me could be achieved? I have not seen this player since, and now have to wonder what monstrosity is going to wind up in those two disconnected 4x4 squares that intrude into my little garden area. I very much fear that the game will simply boil down to who owns the most pieces of land, whether or not they are valuably connected or actively used. Just keep your eye on 100 disconnected squares and sooner or later somebody will approach you for purchase, and you can name your price.

Perhaps, if a square of land is bordered by <= three others with one owner (as is the case on my property), the purchaser should have to check with the owner for establishment of an "easement" of some kind (basically the 3-square owner says "sure go ahead" or "no, I'm just out of money"? Give the current 3-squares owner 48 hours to make the purchase or forego the land (or something like that I know simple suggestions can actually be very complicated to implement).

Thanks for listening

Tcoz Bach.

I totally agree with you phaylen. My Shop used to be where yours is. Right in front of the basketball court and whatnot. I was fine there for a little while but i couldnt do much with so limited space. Luckily i found a bigger spot before more people moved in but even now i still have that same problem. Instead of my building being so tall i would really like it to be one floor...maybe 2 but on a slightly bigger lot.

THE WALKING SQUARES: I tried to make my area somewhat more attractive by buying the land under some of the walking squares and planting trees on either side of them. It looks much nicer but i agree that a better sidewalk of some sort would be even greater.....

Now heres an idea, Seeing as how we CAN buy the land under the walking squares, if you guys have enough money to buy the land from under them id be more than willing to buy all of the ones around me and we can change them ourselves to whatever we agree would be nice. The only bad thing is we gotta find the residents that hardly log in to see if they would be willing to help.

hi Lifers -

thanks for the great thoughts. Some of these plans are indeed underway - mean ole' Governor Linden should be releasing some owned land over the next few days.

Also, we do have a design for the decay and release of land/objects owned by inactive residents. It'll be coming soon, i promise. More details when available.

There are some other suggestions which are very interesting as well. In general, we'll be experimenting with a few different "zoning" approaches (the themed communities are one example) over the coming weeks.

see you in-world

hunter